What Have You Been Doing?

“During this period of transition, I stayed busy by volunteering with the Professional Service Group of Mercer County. Volunteering in this way helps me to give back to the community, while at the same time exercising my professional skills on behalf of a cause in which I believe.”

This is what I will be able to tell interviewers when they ask what I’ve been doing since my last position. By so saying, I am making several positive statements: I take ownership of my job search process; I am engaged and focused; and I am not interested just in myself, but in the community around me.

The Professional Service Group (PSG) is such a useful and unique resource, I decided to blog about it, what it involves, and some of the unique value it adds–both to prospective members as well as to employers.

In December 1989, office management of the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development in the New Brunswick office recognized that unemployed professionals were becoming a significant part of the unemployment landscape. Given their prior work history and educational background, the core idea of these professionals possessing the organizational skills to operate a self-help support group program took life.

Since that time, PSGs proliferated across the state, generally located in or near the county One-Stop Career Center. At the time of this writing, there are 11 such locations.

In this space will be the recent history of the PSG of Mercer County, updated Mondays, with periodic other updates.